The Disadvantages and Flaws of the Adversarial System of Justice - Coursework Example

Adversarial System The adversarial system of justice is the system that depends on the abilities of each lawyer that shows the position of their client. This usually includes the involvement of a neutral party (Koppen and Penrod, pp. 183) that has the power to choose the decision on basis of reality and truth. Many countries around the world have adopted this system of law. This system is unlike the inquisitorial system adopted by countries in Europe in which the jury composed of one or more judges looks into any case of law (Lindsay and Powell, pp. 706). The structure of adversarial system has two significant dimensions (Brassil, pp. 74); and the court of trial functions on both these dimensions until and unless one dimension or adversary succeeds in convincing the judge and getting the decision in favor of their clients. The justice court makes the decision on basis of performance of both the adversaries as the trial continues. As for any system, there are always some advantages and disadvantages associated to it (Beaton-Wells, pp. 53). The paper highlights some of the major flaws and disadvantages commonly found in the adversarial system of law. The first disadvantage or flaw in this regard is the fact adversarial system usually involves higher amount of costs associated to it. Moreover, the system is not only expensive but can also result in extended delays before the court makes a decision (Gifford, pp. 94). Sometimes the period of the trial exceeds the lifeline of people attached to it. In addition to that, the system results in an improper and inappropriate financial burden and economic load for the concerned people (Stacy, pp. 3). The other substantial flaw in this regard is the questionability of the competence level of non-professional working in the legal setup. The reason behind this questionability is the fact that these non-professionals hold the impression of being unskilled in the jurisdictional environment. Apart from this, the influence of media is inevitable in this system and the covering media affects the juror to an unacceptable extent. Furthermore, counseling is the detrimental factor in decision-making of any case present in court of justice. At times, the power of good counseling (Taylor and Laster, pp. 162) outsmarts the truth and reality, which is of course the one basic disadvantage of this system (Gray, pp. 20). Also, the decisions made do not come up with any logical reasoning at the background, the decision of the court is unquestionable and no debate is possible on it. There are much difficulties involved with the assessment of damages and analysis of complex demonstrations that the jurors have to utilize. The fact that usually the settlement and resolutions of the cases in adversarial systems take place on the basis of plea bargain and other settlements between the jurors makes the system even more flawed. In addition, as a result of this plea bargain and other settlement, the majority of cases brought to the adversarial court do not even come to the trial. The consequences of this plea bargain and settlement can end up in significant injustice in the cases where the suspect has a non-professional, inexpert, or exploited lawyer and the suspect is not strong in financial terms. Moreover, the critics regard the system or course of plea and bargain as an unlawful practice under particular situations. The system of plea bargain allows the entities included in the system to behave in way sometimes lead to underserved and undesired safety of the suspects. This system supports the prosecuting attorney to put forward the charges that are far away from the warranted ones and make suspects to declare guilty even if the truth is other way around. Moreover, studies have showed that in an adversarial system the power and control of the judge or jury gets limited by dint of utilization of lay assessments. Another significant flaw in the system of adversary in law is the failure in resolving composite technological and logical cases such as issues related to science and technological advancements, or complex taxation or accounts monitoring. Sometimes, the jury or the judge comes across these complex situations that are very difficult to resolve. The probability of making unjust decisions is very high in these conditions. These unjust results can be for either of the parties or even damaging for both the parties. The reason behind this flaw is the unavailability of enough evidence and the insufficient understanding of the case subject. In adversarial systems, there is no possibility that the defense or the prosecutor make an appeal on invalidity of the evidence. Moreover, the defense and the prosecutor come to know the grounds behind the decision made. Therefore, the evidences provided are sometimes not the truth however; they still serve as the basis for decisions made. In an adversarial system, it is a usual practice for the suspect to remain unrepresented at the levels of proceedings at the court of justice. The reason behind this non-representation is the unavailability of legal help and lack of jurisdictional support. For instance, it is a usual practice for a suspect to remain unrepresented at the hearings in which summaries presented before magistrates or the jury. In addition to that, the suspects remain unrepresented at the instant of arrest until and unless they strive to get any private jurisdictional support. In most of the cases, the situation remains same with no regard to the suspects with respect to their representation at different instants during the proceedings of the court. Though there are some advices by the police to remain silent before seeking any means of legal help but in most of the cases there are evidences that the police took the confessions and recorded every single detail long before the suspect manage to seek any legal advice. This, at times, results in injustice towards the suspect or sometimes towards the other party as well. The unavailability of legal aid at the early stages of criminal justice proceedings gives rise to nullification of cause of providing justice in an adversarial system of justice. The adversarial system as stated earlier is very costly and time consuming for both the prosecutors and the defense. The reason behind this long duration of trials is the fact that the system runs under the umbrella of government bodies that are very formal and time taking. Moreover, in an adversarial system the decisions are either beneficial to one party or the other. The system follows a win-lose approach in which either the defense or the prosecutor has to win or the other party has to lose in any case (Barak, pp. 2). However, there are times and situations where this win-lose approach is not applicable, in such conditions the adversarial system of justice is nothing but a failure (Gillespie, pp. 469). The adversarial system of justice is more suitable for criminal justice; however it bears not much fruitful results for cases and issues related to the civil and social matters such as child custody after separation etc. In cases like these, the win-lose approach of the adversarial system does not do the justice with either of the party and it the decisions made are not beneficial even for children (Ross and Brooke, pp. 90). Many practical difficulties arise in making a preconception meeting the standards of trial court. It is much problematic to establish an inefficient help and aid of jurisdictional board of judges from the record of appeal which only shows what become known and came into light in the trial court during the proceedings of the court. For instance, the point of time when the jury or the council did not manage to talk to the people having evidences or look into the witnesses, the appellate record would indicate that the jury or the council never did the job it had to perform. Nevertheless, there would be no indication in the records that what were the reasons or grounds the council did not perform the task. The records are least likely to show the fact that what was the output of that thorough investigation. One significant point in terms of flaws existing in an adversarial system of law is the increasing demand and on contrary decrement in resources. The system faces the challenges imposed due to the increment in number of cases due to increase in criminal behavior among people and the availability of more opportunities of committing white-collar crimes. This increasing trend of cases in courts in turn makes the performance of courts even slower. The ability to collect evidences and other resources minimizes with this increasing trend. This phenomenon results in two equally significant and critical conditions. First one is the fact that unavailability of exercising proper justice due to over-saturation of cases in the court room increases the capabilities of exercising executing prudence instead of pursuing the case in the court of law. The second result of prime importance is the fact this over-loading of cases in justice courts lead to the long delays during the proceedings of a case in court of law. Moreover, due to these times consuming sessions there is always a potential risk of economical devastation of either or both of the two parties related to the case. In most of the cases, the suspect or the person accused falls short in terms of monetary fund that is necessary in order to continue seeking legal help for the trial (Nivola, pp. 245). As stated earlier, the adversarial system of law induces a problem of delay in most of the cases prosecuted in the court of justice (Bayles, pp. 38). One major reason of this flaw is the over-loading of cases coming to the court as discussed above. Due to this reason, the delays encompassing considerable amount of time exist between the time of committing the crime and the trial. The grounds for this delay implies to the fact that there exist certain difficulties and complexities in solving at case at the beginning. This delay is conventional (McCrudden, pp. 158) and sometimes, it becomes longer due to the repetition of different tasks performed related to any particular case. On the contrary, there is always a priority factor in terms of prosecuting different cases having different levels of significance in the eyes of the court. This results in even more time delay for the less significant cases or for the cases having lower priority in the court. In most of the legal setup these days, the process of prosecuting any party results in delays due to procrastination or due to the inevitable considerations of the strategy developed by the court or the client. The dealing of most of the cases still involves the process of jury trials that goes on without delays. This is due to the greater number of suspects who agree for the guilty plea. The difficulties due to delay is inevitable in an adversary system of law that induces certain problems when it comes to the qualification of justice and leads to the higher financial expenses (Kubicek, pp. 94). The adversarial system of law confronts general criticism with regard to level and quality of justice in any jurisdictional setup, the ability of being fair, and the tendency to protect rights of the civilians. Many a times, the adversarial system of law faces accusation of infringing of the rights of the suspect or prosecutor. The system also bears disadvantages in terms of being effective in applied methodology related to pre-trial and during the trial levels. Conclusively, the paper has discussed some of the significant aspects of the Adversarial System, and endeavored to identify and analyze its disadvantages and flaws that are causing complexities and inefficiencies in the process of justice. The paper has identified and analyzed different studies related to the topic; however, it is anticipation that future researches in this regard will allow a more comprehensive and updated understanding of the impact. It is an expectation that the paper will be beneficial for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. Works Cited Barak, Gregg. Battleground. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. Bayles, Michael D. Principles of law: a normative analysis. Springer, 1987. Beaton-Wells, Caron. Proof of antitrust markets in Australia. Federation Press, 2003. Brassil, Belinda. Excel HSC legal studies. Pascal Press, 2007. Gifford, Donald James. Understanding the Australian legal system. Routledge, 1997. Gillespie, Alisdair. The English legal system. Oxford University Press, 2007. Gray, Deborah. BTEC National in Public Services. Heinemann, 2004. Koppen, P. J. van and Steven Penrod. Adversarial versus inquisitorial justice: psychological perspectives on criminal justice systems. Springer, 2003. Kubicek, Theodore L. Adversarial justice: Americas court system on trial. Algora Publishing, 2006. Lindsay, S. J. E. and Graham E. Powell. The handbook of clinical adult psychology. Routledge, 1994. McCrudden, Christopher. Women, employment, and European equality law. Eclipse Publications, 1987. Nivola, Pietro S. Comparative disadvantages?: social regulations and the global economy. Brookings Institution Press, 1997. Ross, Rosalind Brooke and Rosalind Brooke. Law, justice and social policy. Routledge, 1979. Stacy, Helen. Beyond the adversarial system. Federation Press, 1999. Taylor, Veronica L. and Kathy Laster. Interpreters and the legal system. Federation Press, 1994. Read More